Put Things Off iPhone app from Spiffing Apps

I’ve been fortunate enough to receive a review copy of “Put things off” from the guys at Spiffing Apps. I’ve had it installed on my phone for just over a day now and it’s already proving useful. Upto now i’ve been using the notepad to remember things that need doing which is a bit clumsy. With PTO you are able to quickly add tasks and to organise them very easily and quickly and the best bit is the “Put off” folder. There are always things that need doing but you can’t be bothered doing them now, this is where Put Things Off comes into it’s own.

Put Things Off might not be a reinvention of the wheel but it’s intuitive, well organised and simple to use – exactly what you want from an organisational app. It is released on Monday 1st June – take a look!

http://spiffingapps.com/

Flash CS4 – Controlling 3D parameters with Actionscript Tutorial

Here is a really quick tutorial outlining how you can add components to a scene that control the 3D rotation of a Movie Clip. You can use this technique with Flash Video too and it will still play and interact as normal which is certainly a sight to behold!

First things first let’s create our MovieClip symbol which will be rotated around later on. I’m using a photo of me with Jar-Jar Binks (following on from yesterday’s Star Wars theme). If you’re importing a photo like me then resize it if neccesary and press F8 or Modify > Convert to Symbol. This time, make sure it’s a movie clip symbol and note that the registration will control where the symbol rotates from – i’m choosing the middle of the symbol.

Now select that symbol and in the property inspector give it the instance name “box“, this will allow actionscript to recognise the symbol

Goto Window > Components and drag 2 sliders from the window onto the stage, these are going to control X and Y rotation of the object. Again in the property inspector give these sliders the instance names “slider1” and “slider2” for the same reason.

Now, with a slider selected goto Window > Component Inspector and change maximum to “89” and minimum to “-89“. Do this for both sliders. This will limit the rotation of the movieclip to just under 90 degree angles, of course you can put whatever numbers you want in.

Now it’s actionscript time, copy and paste this code into the first frame on your actions layer (create one if you don’t have one aleady)

this.addEventListener(Event.ENTER_FRAME, spinbox);
function spinbox(e:Event):void {
box.rotationX = slider1.value;
box.rotationY = slider2.value;
}

Give it a test, your sliders should now control rotation for the MovieClip.

Flash CS4 – Star Wars Text Scroll Tutorial

Here’s another quick tutorial to help you get your head around the new 3D tools within Flash CS4, and no Actionscript this time, just content creation and manipulation. Let’s get going…

First things first, you need to create a fixed width static text box (a normal text box) and type in your text) for this example I made my text box the same width as the stage so that it fills the bottom of the screen when the text scrolls in later.

If you’re using classic yellow text like mine then you might want to make the stage colour black now.

OK, now you need to convert this text into a Movie Clip symbol, this enables us to rotate and translate it in 3D space. Press Modify > Convert to symbol or press F8. Make sure you select Movie Clip and press ok.

Now we’re going to slant the text, but before you get too excited make sure that you do the following otherwise your text might not scroll properly:

Select the 3D rotation tool and then make sure the Global Transform button is selected (bottom of the tool pallatte once the rotation tool is selected). This moves everything in the scene  rather than just modifying the rotation (local rotation) of our text.

If we had just used the rotation tool, the text would slant the same way but when we try and scroll it later it would move at the wrong angle.

Now slant your text to around 45 degrees in the X axis.

Now it’s time to set a tween for the scrolling of the text.

Deselect the Global Transform button, we’re going to scroll locally now. Select the 3D translation tool (it’s under the 3D rotation tool).

Move to frame 100 in the timeline and press F5, now right-click on one of the blank frames in the middle and select Motion Tween. Move back to frame 100 and by using the 3D translation tool move the text backward in the Z-Axis.

There should be a diamond shape on frame 100 now signifying that we’ve set a keyframe. Now move to frame 1 and translate the text backward so it is just off screen. If you play the animation through now the text will scroll away from you like the intro to Star Wars. We’re almost there.

Move to frame 90 and select the text Movie Clip with the selection tool. Under Colour Effect change the style to alpha and move the slider down and then back up to 100 to create a keyframe. Now move to frame 100 and move the alpha slider down to 0. This will make our text fade out as it moves away into space.

You can now finish the scene off by adding stars onto a new layer under the scrolling text.

Pre-loader in Flash CS4 Tutorial

As promised, here is a really quick way to create a powerful pre-loader in Flash CS4 using the ActionScript 3.0 language. The function of the preloader is to let the user know how long they’ve got left to wait until the flash movie loads. So it’s important to keep the file size down here, but that doesn’t mean you can’t have fun.

This preloader gives the loading information to the user in 2 ways:

1. A text box will feedback the percentage of the movie loaded
2. A 100 frame animation will play as the file loads to make things a bit more interesting.

First things first, let’s create a new scene before the main scene in the movie. Because scenes load independantly we can put the pre-loader on the first scene and then progress to the main content once the movie has loaded.

To do this:

Insert > Scene, then open the scenes window Window > Other Panels > Scene. Now name the new layer “Preloader” and put it on top of the scene with your movie content in. This makes sure the pre-loader is loaded before the main content.

Now you need to create the 2 objects that will give the user our preloader feedback. The first is a dynamic text box, to create this choose the text tool and draw some text on screen. Don’t worry about what text you input as this will be replaced by actionscript later. The important steps here are to Select “Dynamic Text” in the property inspector dropdown for the text and give it the instance name “preload_txt”. This will allow actionscript to work with the text later.

Now we have our text box ready for actionscript let’s get our animation ready. I’m not going to go into the finer points of animation here, feel free to create your own clip, but try and keep the file size down. To do this goto Insert > New Symbol and create a new Movie Clip symbol. You can put your 100 frame animation into here. Once you have done that, place an instance of the symbol onto the stage, select it, and give it the instance name “preloaderMC”. Again the instance name is important here for actionscript to recognise the sequence.

Now it’s time to get the actionscript down. Select the first (and only) keyframe in the preloader scene and r-click it, selecting “Actions”. Now copy and paste the following code into the actions panel:

import flash.events.ProgressEvent;
function update(e:ProgressEvent):void
{
var percent:Number = Math.floor( (e.bytesLoaded*100)/e.bytesTotal );
if(preloaderMC is MovieClip){
preloaderMC.gotoAndStop(percent);
preload_txt.text = String(percent) + “%”;
}
if(percent == 100){
play();
}
}
loaderInfo.addEventListener(ProgressEvent.PROGRESS, update);
// Extra test for IE
var percent:Number = Math.floor( (this.loaderInfo.bytesLoaded*100)/this.loaderInfo.bytesTotal );
if(percent == 100){
nextFrame();
}
stop();

And there you have it, your pre-loader should play the animation and feedback a percentage as the movie is loaded if you have followed these instructions properly. You can test the preloader by pressing CTRL+ENTER or CMD+RTN and under the view panel changing the simulated download speed to test  loading times on different internet speeds.

Fat City Records…Gone

Sad news, I was in Manchester last week to do some training in Flash CS4. On my lunch break I thought i’d pop into Fat City records to check out new releases only to find that it has been shut down and replaced by “No Angel”. It’s a sad, sad day for music. At least Piccadilly Records is still afloat.

This is what student projects should look like!

Perfect student project, 2 characters, 1 set, simple story brilliantly executed.

Planning a Flash CS4 course

It’s been a busy few days. I’ve been putting new material together for the Flash CS4 Rich Content course this Thursday and Friday. Delegates will be having a fair bit of fun it has to be said, interactive “Bruce Lee Kung Fu Pose and Shout” toy demo page, James Bond film intros, Star Wars scrolling text, Cocopops pouring into a bowl and some crazy actionscript preloaders and custom 3D interactive bits and bobs.

I will post some tutorials too for some of this stuff once the course dust has settled which will be nice.

In other news I saw my cousin Hannah yesterday which was pretty cool, she’s territory manager for Johnson & Johnson in Lancashire which means we’ll be seeing more of her soon and I also found out that my sister has been promoted at her school in Leeds – hoorah. She’s popping over on Monday too which will be cool. Aaaaand (I promise i’ll stop soon) my friend Nick Cernis from uni has submitted an app to the iPhone store so lots to look forward to there.

So lots going on and far too little time to get it down on my blog, what a crazy world we live in!

Controls for Flashback on iPhone

They’ve not been posted online anywhere that I can find, so if you’ve bought Flashback from the app store then here’s how to get Conrad moving:

Walking, crouching, jumping – use the d-pad anywhere on the screen

Forward jump over obstacle – hold ‘fire’ and press d-pad upward

Climb upward – hold d-pad up when under a ledge

Running – hold ‘fire’ and tap a direction

Running jump – once running press d-pad ‘up’ with fire still held

Lowering yourself down from a ledge – hold ‘fire’ then press the d-pad ‘down’

Talk to characters – press ‘fire’

Advance conversation – press ‘item’

Getting your gun out – press ‘gun’

Firing your gun – with gun out, press fire

Crouch firing – with gun out press ‘down’ on d-pad then press fire

Rolling – Whilst crouching with gun press ‘left’ or ‘right’. Or whilst running press ‘down’ on the d-pad.

Using lifts – When on a lift hold ‘fire’ and press ‘up’ on the d-pad

What’s in the box?

“What in the Box?” is an ambitious “test film” created by a Dutch students Tim Smit and Thibaut Niels that’s been getting a ‘little bit’ of interest on YouTube, and now the film big-wigs in the last few months.

The story is an apocalyptic POV sci-fi thriller that mixes bits of JJ Abrams and Half-Life together to create a thoroughly entertaining 9-minute ride. Tim Smit’s not a film-making student, though. He studies physics. VFX is a “hobby.” Watch him get snapped up.

It’s 9 mins long so if you’ve got the time, get watching!

Canvas next Thursday – 21st May

Check the flyer, this month’s Canvas is in association with Liverpool Sound City and is, as always, at 3345 Parr St.

For more info check out www.canvasnight.co.uk